"Any clever man may sometimes see the truth in
flashes; any scientific man may put some aspect of the truth into
technical words; yet all this hardly deserves the name of philosophy so
long as the heart remains unabashed, and we continue to live like animals
lost in the stream of our impressions, not only in the public routine and
necessary cares of life, but even in our silent thoughts and
affections."

"PHILOSOPHY.
The Greek word sophia is ordinarily translated into English as
"wisdom," and the compound philosophia, from which "philosophy"
derives, is translated as "the love of wisdom." But sophia had a
much wider range of application than the modern English "wisdom." Wherever
intelligencecan be exercised -- in practical
affairs, in the mechanical arts, in business -- there is room for
sophia; Homer used it to refer to the skill of a carpenter
(Iliad XV, 412). Furthermore, whereas modern English draws a fairly
sharp distinction between the search for wisdom and the attempt to satisfy
intellectual curiosity, Herodotus used the verb philosophein in a
context in which it means nothing more than the desire to find out
(History I, 30). Briefly, then, philosophia etymologically
connotes the love of exercising one's curiosity and intelligence rather
than the love of wisdom. Although philosophers have often sought to
confine the word "philosophy" within narrower boundaries, in popular usage
it has never entirely lost its original breadth of meaning."

"Philosophy. To the Greeks, who coined the
word, philosophy was primarily the love of wisdom. Socrates, a master of
philosophers, did not profess to have wisdom or knowledge, but he sought
them. His philosophy was always a quest, never a body of knowledge or
doctrine. Some Greek philosophers, less modest than Socrates, taught what
they believed to be truth. What they taught came to be known, like the
quest for truth, as philosophy. The Greeks were not fond of definitions
and did not impose sharp limitations on philosophy. It did not include
manual skill or such occupational learning as that of the farmer, the
sophist, the physician, or the priest. It comprised the body of
disinterested learning. The word is still used in this sense in the title,
doctor of philosophy.

"In the medieval university there were typically four
faculties: the faculty of philosophy and the professional faculties of
theology, law, and medicine. The body of disinterested learning once
generally known as philosophy had been differentiated, especially in the
19th and 20th centuries. The latest branch of learning to be split off
from philosophy is psychology. An earlier loss was physics, formerly
called natural philosophy. What is now known as philosophy in the narrower
or technical sense is a residuum of the body of learning that formerly
included mathematics and the natural and social sciences. Still comprised
under philosophy are various branches of learning that have not much in
common and may yet be split off as distinct disciplines. These include
logic, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics.

"The history of philosophy is largely the history of
metaphysics, the science of being, or of human experience of being. Many
peoples, probably all, have had their philosophies. The Chinese
philosophy, associated especially with Confucius, is an honorable example.
Peoples of European stock trace their philosophies back to Greece. The
Greek genius for philosophy may be seen in the earliest Greek literature,
as in the poems of Homer and Hesiod; but Thales of Miletus is usually
considered the earliest Greek philosopher. The greatest names in Greek
philosophy are Socrates, his pupil Plato, and Aristotle, Plato's pupil. It
is said that still every philosopher is either a Platonist or an
Aristotelian.

"There were various schools of Greek philosophy, as
the Stoics and the Epicureans. The great philosophical system developed in
the Middle Ages is scholasticism. Modern contributions to philosophy begin
especially with Francis Bacon. Great philosophers since Bacon's time
include Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Berkeley, Hume, Kant,
J.G. Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Comte, Emerson, J.S. Mill, Herbert
Spencer, Nietzsche, William James, Bergson, Dewey, and Santayana. See C.F.
Lavell, A Biography of the Greek People; A.W. Benn, Ancient
Philosophy and Modern Philosophy; H.O. Taylor, The Mediaeval
Mind; J. Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy; Bertrand
Russell, The Problems of Philosphy."

"There is a pleasure in philosophy, and a lure even
in the mirages of metaphysics, which every student feels until the coarse
necessities of physical existence drag him from the heights of thought
into the mart of economic strife and gain. Most of us have known some
golden days in the June of life when philosophy was in fact what Plato
calls it, "that dear delight"; when the love of a modestly elusive Truth
seemed more glorious, incomparably, than the lust for the ways of the
flesh and the dross of the world. And there is always some wistful remnant
in us of that early wooing of wisdom. 'Life has meaning,' we feel with
Browning -- 'to find its meaning is my meat and drink.' So much of our
lives is meaningless, a self-canceling vacillation and futility; we strive
with the chaos about us and within; but we would believe all the while
that there is something vital and significant in us, could we but decipher
our own souls. We want to understand; 'life means for us constantly to
transform into light and flame all that we are or meet with'; we are like
Mitya in The Brothers Karamazov -- 'one of those who don't want
millions, but an answer to their questions'; we want to seize the value
and perspective of passing things, and so to pull ourselves up out of the
maelstrom of daily circumstance. We want to know that the little things
are little, and the big things big, before it is too late; we want to see
things now as they will seem forever -- 'in the light of eternity.' We
want to learn to laugh in the face of the inevitable, to smile even at the
looming of death. We want to be whole, to coordinate our energies by
criticizing and harmonizing our desires; for coordinated energy is the
last word in ethics and politics, and perhaps in logic and metaphysics
too.

"'To be a philosopher,' said Thoreau, 'is not merely
to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom
as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence,
magnanimity, and trust.' We may be sure that if we can but find wisdom,
all things else will be added unto us. 'Seek ye first the good things of
the mind,' Bacon admonishes us, 'and the rest will either be supplied or
its loss will not be felt.' Truth will not make us rich, but it will make
us free. . .

"Philosophy seems to stand still, perplexed; but only
because she leaves the fruits of victory to her daughters the sciences,
and herself passes on, divinely discontent, to the uncertain and
unexplored.

"Shall we be more technical? Science is analytical
description, philosophy is synthetic interpretation. Science wishes to
resolve the whole into parts, the organism into organs, the obscure into
the known. It does not inquire into the values and ideal possibilities of
things, nor into their total and final significance; it is content to show
their present actuality and operation, it narrows its gaze resolutely to
the nature and process of things as they are. The scientist is as
impartial as Nature in Turgenev's poem: he is as interested in the leg of
a flea as in the creative throes of a genius. But the philosopher is not
content to describe the fact; he wishes to ascertain its relation to
experience in general, and thereby to get at its meaning and its worth; he
combines things in interpretive synthesis; he tries to put together,
better than before, that great universe-watch which the inquisitive
scientist has analytically taken apart. Science tells us how to heal and
how to kill; it reduces the death rate in retail and then kills us
wholesale in war; but only wisdom -- desire coordinated in the light of
all experience -- can tell us when to heal and when to kill. To observe
processes and to construct means is science; to criticize and coordinate
ends is philosophy: and because in these days our means and instruments
have multiplied beyond our interpreation and synthesis of ideals and ends,
our life is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. For a fact is
nothing except in relation to desire; it is not complete except in
relation to a purpose and a whole. Science without philosophy, facts
without perspective and valuation, cannot save us from havoc and despair.
Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us
wisdom."

"Of what
possible use can this be to me in later life?" many a college student
has wondered. "What is philosophy other than a prolonged head trip?
Years after graduation I would have long forgotten about Aristotle and
Kant. And then what?" The lament has a certain appeal. After all, one doesn't "need" philosophy to earn a living, start a
family, become wealthy or famous, have fun or even learn about the world. And many can get along
quite fine without being too serious or curious or reflective. Socrates
was probably speaking for a minority of the human family when he said the
"unexamined life is not worth living."

But
experience has a way of leading even the most pragmatic men and women into
the arms of philosophy. Someone suddenly loses a best friend or spouse to
cancer and is stricken with grief. The person wonders how it's fair, or why
a benevolent deity could allow such awful tragedies to occur; or she
ponders the loss and sees clearly how ephemeral life really is, and how so
very little -- not least one's relationships -- can be taken for granted
anymore. The questions are of course philosophical ones, and the pensive
mood occasions many thoughts about justice, love, religion, truth, and the
meaning of existence. A little perspective at that point is worth all the money one has saved up and all the success one
has enjoyed.

Many of us will work
hard all our adult life, build up a retirement account, achieve certain
professional distinctions, but inevitably ask if "this is all there
is." When boredom hits, when reason informs us that there must be
something deeper in life than merely acquiring things and padding the bank
account -- when life feels empty, even meaningless -- where do we turn?
Popular culture has little to offer in the way of profundities and
insights. It can distract us, titillate us, even throw a salve on an
aching heart, but cannot offer a searching mind what it is looking for or
what it hopes to find. Religions tell us that assent should precede
understanding, and that faith is a wonderful surrogate for knowledge. They
ask us to accept certain texts as precious and holy, even though such
texts were written by ordinary men, fallible just as the rest of us are
fallible, susceptible to culture-determined notions just as the rest of us
are. For some of us, mere faith isn't enough: we want to know; we want the
naked truth; we would much prefer an ugly truth to a soothing falsehood,
and would rather stand with the lonely truth than with popular illusions
and myths. It is philosophy to which we must then turn, for better or
worse.

"It
happens that the stage sets collapse," Albert Camus writes in The
Myth of Sisyphus. "Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or
the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same
rhythm -- this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the
'why' arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with
amazement. 'Begins' -- this is important. Weariness comes at the end of
the acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the
impulse of consciousness."

So even those
unlikely to ask about the whys and wherefores of life early on will at
some point have to confront them, with more or less sophistication. And
for most of us, the questions regularly arise, in some form or other, so that
philosophy in some sense is unavoidable and cannot be considered merely an
arid mental exercise; questions such as these: Is there or is there not a
God? If we believe there is no such entity as God, then does it make sense
to speak of "right" and "wrong" anymore? How are moral
judgments then grounded? Why does anything at all exist -- anything as
opposed to nothing? If the universe began with an explosion, and the
result was so much drifting matter, then how and at what point did
consciousness emerge out of that matter? Is there a point or plan to the
universe? But then what is it, and how can one know?

"Philosophy,"
Arthur Schopenhauer said, "just as much as art and poetry, must have
its source in perceptual comprehension of the world: nor, however much the
head needs to remain on top, ought it to be so cold-blooded a business
that the whole man, heart and head, is not finally involved and affected
through and through."

Arthur
Schopenhauer, "On Philosophy And The Intellect": The
two main requirements for philosophizing are: firstly, to have the courage
not to keep any question back; and secondly, to attain a clear
consciousness of anything that goes without saying so as to
comprehend it as a problem. Finally, the mind must, if it is really to
philosophize, also be truly disengaged: it must prosecute no particular
goal or aim, and thus be free from the enticement of will, but devote
itself undividedly to the instruction which the perceptible world and its
own consciousness imparts to it...How
very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little
lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from the fact
that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life, the uncertainty of our
existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides,
everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only
the rarest of exceptions do so. The rest live their lives away in this
dream not very differently from the animals, from which they are in the
end distinguished only by their ability to provide for a few years ahead.
If they should ever feel any metaphysical need, it is taken care of from
above and in advance by the various religions; and these, whatever they
may be like, suffice."

Henry
David Thoreau, Walden:"There are nowadays
professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to
profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely
to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom
as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence,
magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not
only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and
thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They
make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did,
and are in no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men."

William
James, Pragmatism: "It is astonishing to see how
many philosophical disputes collapse into insignificance the moment you
subject them to this simple test of tracing a concrete consequence. There
can be no difference anywhere that doesn't make a difference
elsewhere -- no difference in abstract truth that doesn't express itself
in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact,
imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere, and somewhen. The whole function
of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will
make to you and me, at definite instants of our life, if this
world-formula or that world-formula be the true one."

Albert
Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus & Other Essays:
"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is
suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to
answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest -- whether
or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve
categories -- comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer...Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined. Society has but little
connection with such beginnings. The worm is in man's heart. That is where
it must be sought. One must follow and understand this fatal game that
leads from lucidity in the face of existence to flight from light."

Bertrand
Russell, Wisdom of the West:
"In itself philosophy sets out neither to solve our troubles nor to
save our souls. It is, as the Greeks put it, a kind of sightseeing
adventure undertaken for its own sake. There is thus in principle no
questions of dogma, or rites, or sacred entities of any kind, even though
individual philosophers may of course turn out to be stubbornly dogmatic.
There are indeed two attitudes that might be adopted towards the unknown.
One is to accept the pronouncements of people who say they know, on the
basis of books, mysteries or other sources of inspiration. The other way
is to go out and look for oneself, and this is the way of science and
philosophy."